July 30, 2007
Working at Microsoft
As Anna suggested, it’s probably a good idea to tell you all about my job working for Microsoft. I’ve been working there for a little over a month now. I’m working as a contractor for Volt Technical Resources, which provides a large proportion of Microsoft’s thousands of contract employees.
I’m working in Windows’ SPP division, which stands for “Software Protection Program” if memory serves. Microsoft, as most tech places, loves its TLA’s (Three Letter Acronyms). Trying to remember what a series of three or four letters expands to and keep track of a discussion is a serious problem when you first start there, particularly since the few lists of acronyms they have are scanty and occasionally contradictory.
The SPP division handles Windows activation—entering that set of alpha-numeric characters printed on your machine or on the CDs you install from. My particular project is something of a secret, but its general goal is to make Vista more difficult to copy illegally.
I was invited down to an interview with them in early June; they offered me the job by the time I’d driven home, and they wanted an answer within a couple of days. As it happened, I had an interview with a Wisconsin-based company called Epic scheduled for the next week, it was something of a pain that I couldn’t wait until I’d interviewed there before responding to Volt/Microsoft’s offer. Before deciding to take it, I called up Jesse McDonald. Microsoft has a very mixed reputation among geeks in general, and I wanted to know if he thought it was ethically acceptable to work for the company. Kind of strange, I know. But Jesse is a firm supporter of F/OSS (Free/Open Source software) and Linux, and I trusted his opinion. If he said it was all right, then it must be ok. :-) Jesse was a little taken aback by the question, but once I’d explained the question and the position I’d be taking, he asked, “So you’re asking me if I would have a problem with you working on a project to make Windows more difficult to copy?” As far as he was concerned, making Windows more difficult to illegally copy only makes it more likely that people will try alternatives ... such as Linux. Thus reassured, I accepted the job.
Microsoft is a neat place to work. They have unlimited beverages there, so I can get fresh-brewed coffee, pop (Coke, Mountain Dew, Dr Pepper, Cherry Coke, Pepsi, A&W Root Beer, Orange Soda (of a sort I can’t recall right now) and diet versions of most of those), milk, chocolate milk, and soda water. In addition to all this suffering, I am inflicted with three machines which are “mine”—one dev box which is very nicely powerful and a couple of test boxes with are acceptably powerful. I’m a tester, so I write test plans and test scripts and run tests and do whatever else my manager says to do. It’s really not a bad place to be ... not at all.
I’ll be here for at least the next few months. My current project is due to be finished sometime in September or October. My only firm date is that I need to be in Wisconsin by November 5.
Yes, Wisconsin. :-D After I’d accepted the job at Microsoft, I wrote a brief note to the people at Epic, letting them know that I wouldn’t be available for at least the next few months. To my great surprise, they wrote back and said that they could be “very flexible about starting dates” and that they’d love for me to come down and interview even though I was going to be working for Microsoft through this job. I gladly accepted and was quite impressed. They called back after a week or so and offered me the job. I took a while to consider and then gave my consent. So my wife and I will be moving to Wisconsin some time this fall; I’ll be starting at Epic in early November.
Epic develops software used by some of the largest healthcare providers in the world. It’s the software used to track patient records, including prescriptions, doctor visits, X-rays ... you name it; if it’s a medical field, Epic probably has a sub-system designed to keep records for it. They’ve got a special “homemade” database system and data query language for it as well. I anticipate lots of fun getting to work for them.
I hope that’s enough news to sate your curiosity for now. :-D If not ... well, there’s always the comments!
